The first session of Jewish Book Week 2003 presented an unforgettable celebration of the wealth of writing to come out of the East End and Hackney in the middle decades of the 20th century. Bernard Kops, Emanuel Litvinoff, Harold Pinter and Arnold Wesker, four of Britain’s most distinguished writers, discussed with Melvyn Bragg the influence on their writing of an area that in recent years has been much mythologised and romanticised. This session was a unique opportunity to hear these w...

Acclaimed writer and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg presents a moving and poignant tale of one of history’s greatest love stories. Paris, 1117: Heloise, a young and celebrated scholar, is stunned when the radical philosopher, Peter Abelard, agrees to be her tutor. They embark on a passionate, dangerous love affair with horrific consequences, sending shockwaves through 12th-century Paris. Nine centuries later, Arthur, an English academic, in Paris to recreate their story in a novel, finds his ...